FIC: Brown [Blackadder Goes Forth]
Jan. 11th, 2006 02:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darktrent182Title: Brown
Fandom: Blackadder
Characters: George Colthurst St. Barleigh, Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, Heinrich Neumann (OMC)
Prompt: #017. Brown
Word Count: 1,737
Rating: PG for implied violence?
Summary: After awakening in the hospital, a new visitor gives George an offer he can't refuse.
Author's Notes: Written on a Wednesday between classes. Happens a while later after A Different Sort of White. Much thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rainyd and edna_blackadder for the read-through. :D
***
The next time George opened his eyes, he noticed the color brown.
It was another ordinary color -- he'd seen more than his share of it in the trenches, especially after a hard rain, but this sort of brown wasn't the kind that you could slip in and muddy your uniform with.
However, instead of mud, it was the color of the young man's eyes.
The chap couldn't've been more than his mid-twenties. He wore a rather smart uniform, pressed rather neatly, medals and such all very straight, even if it was a bit drab. His hair was cut short, and the lad was sitting in an uncomfortable-looking wooden chair next to George's bed, his hat in his lap. Clean-shaven, so that probably meant he wasn't a higher ranking officer, but this was also a jerry, so George wasn't really sure about that.
"Guten Morgen," the officer... Neumann? Was that some sort of rank? ...replied.
He had no earthly idea what that could possibly mean, but since the jerry wasn't actively trying to kill him or break any more of his appendages, George hazarded a guess that it meant something polite. Much like something you would say when you weren't sure what you *could* say because a chap was in bed.
George sat up a little straighter in his bed. Wouldn't do any good at all to give a bad impression -- model prisoner and all that.
"Ah, hullo," George replied back tentatively. Just in case that hadn't been meant to be polite.
"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" The young officer tilted his head a little, the thick brown eyebrows lowering, but his expression polite.
"Beg pardon?" George asked, his face screwing up into a puzzled look.
"Ich schätze nicht." The young man sighed. "I am Heinrich Neumann."
George blinked. "Oh! Was that what you were trying to say?" He offered his right hand immediately. "Lieutenant the Honorable George Colhurst St. Barleigh. Pleasure to meet you."
Neumann blinked, as if he were surprised. "A pleasure," he said slowly, reaching out his own hand and shaking George's hand tentatively.
George beamed at him before affecting his politely curious expression. "Not to sound rude or anything, but where *am* I? Last I knew, I was in a prison cell having my fingers broken."
Neumann stared at him for a moment, as if he were expecting more, and then nodded. "Well, we..." He paused. "How you say... We have released you, but mit condition."
"Mit condition?" George blinked.
Neumann frowned and then rolled his eyes. "*With* conditions. Das tut mir Leid." he appended quickly.
"Conditions?" George frowned. "What conditions?"
"You are to..." Heinrich paused again, looking annoyed. "Ausspionieren..."
"God bless you," George replied smartly.
Neumann blinked, and then shook his head. "Ausspio... spi-- spy! Ja, spy. You are to *spy* for us."
George blinked. "Spy on the British? For Harry Hun?"
Neumann nodded. "Ja--" He paused and cleared enunciated, "Yes."
George tried his best scowl and folded his arms as best he could, looking more like a petulant child instead of a British officer. It was especially difficult with the cast on his left arm. "Absolutely not."
Neumann nodded again, and looked as though he were expecting this. That wasn't good.
"Very well, Lieutenant." He was confusing his Vs and Ws again. What was it about Germans and confusing their consonants? "I have orders that if you do not..." He frowned. "Cooperate." He paused and then nodded. "A Captain Blackadder and a Private..." He pulled out a small slip of paper and squinted at it. "Baldrick." He looked back up at George. "They will be shot."
George's father once told him that a good British soldier doesn't reveal his weakness to the enemy, but this... The thought of Balders and the Cap, shot... "Y-You wouldn't bally well *dare*! A-a-and if you shoot them, I'll come back here and I'll... I'll jolly well take every one of you on to a man!"
One of Neumann's thick eyebrows rose, and brown eyes looked at him steadily. "Lieutenant."
It was like looking into another pair of brown eyes, that same firm but gentle tone. Forcing him to see the reality of the situation, even if he wanted to go in, guns blazing, boo sucks to Harry Hun...
George glared at him as best he could, trying to spit in this jerry's face like he had wanted to in the General's. "I'll jolly well do it."
"I'm sure you will," Neumann told him seriously. "But then your Captain and the private will have died, and you as well. All for nothing."
George gritted his teeth. "I joined up to fight for God and country. I'm not going to become a spy."
Neumann sighed. "Do you really want your Captain's family to have his body delivered to them, Lieutenant? Do you want Private Baldrick tossed into some shallow grave somewhere?"
"You haven't given me proof that you have them," George snarled.
Neumann calmly reached into the front of his jacket and removed a very beaten, hole-ridden hat that had seen *much* better days. From where he was laying on the bed, George was sure it even *smelled* like Baldrick.
Neuman looked at the hat, and then tossed it on the bed. It landed on George's legs, shaking loose some dirt onto the nice, clean sheets. "If you want more proof, I'm sure we can bring back a finger."
George stared at the hat for a long moment before he reached for the hat, picking it up and trying futilely to wipe more dirt off the top. Flecks of brown drifted down, dark against the white sheets.
Neumann looked at him steadily before standing. "Ich habe meine Antwort." He turned and took a step.
George looked up, and abruptly grabbed for the end of Neumann's jacket. "Wait!"
Neumann stopped, turning to look at George. "Have you... changed your mind?"
George gritted his teeth, feeling himself shake a little. "...yes."
Neumann nodded, and sat back down on the chair. "Good."
George took a slow breath before sagging back onto the bed. "What do you want me to do?" he asked in a hollow voice.
"As I said, you will spy for us," Neumann replied.
"But how? They already know who I am and all that. They might even shoot me if they thought I deserted." George pointed out.
Brown eyes looked at him, not entirely unsympathetic. "We have a plan for that."
"Well?" George frowned at him. "What is it?"
"We want information on troop movements," Neumann replied. "But since you will be arrested if you return to duty, you will go undercover."
"Oh?" George's frown turned curious, despite himself. He'd always rather fancied the idea of being someone else, even if it was just for a little while. Of course, he'd jolly well never anticipated this. "Do tell."
"Some months ago," Neumann said, reaching for George's bedside table, and for the first time, not only did George notice he *had* a bedside table, but there was a folder there that Neumann picked up and opened. "You were in eine... 'music hall' production."
George nodded. "The traditional soldier's drag act." He smiled. "It was jolly good fun."
Neumann nodded distractedly. "We received reports that Das Schöne Georgina was... taken?" Neumann frowned. "To a ball?"
"I think you want 'escorted'," George replied helpfully.
Neumann nodded. "Ah, ja. Escorted. Das Schöne Georgina was escorted to the regimental ball by General Melchett."
George nodded again. "That was rather lovely. But why are you bringing that up now?"
Neumann raised a thick brown eyebrow at him. "Das Schöne Georgina will make a... how you say... triumphant return."
George blinked. "What?"
"You heard me, ja?" Neumann frowned.
"But... I couldn't possibly..." George shook his head.
"Warum nicht?"
George blinked. "Beg pardon?"
Neumann opened his mouth and then looked annoyed. "Why not?"
"Well, it's not that I wouldn't *mind*, necessarily. It's just that I can't."
"We will have dresses made..."
"It's not that. It's just that the Cap told General Melchett that Georgina trod on a cluster of mines," George explained. "Georgina can't bally well come back from the *dead*."
Neumann's frown this time was more puzzled than annoyed. "Why?"
"Why what?" George blinked.
"Why did your Captain say that?"
"Oh, well, the General proposed to me, and I ended up saying yes. It was an absolute mess, really."
Neumann stared at him.
George blinked again. He was doing that rather a lot during this conversation. It was almost worse than that time Mum had him peeling onions as punishment for tracking mud in the house again. "What?"
"The General proposed to you? A... marriage proposal?" Neumann asked slowly, as if he were approaching a mine that he was worried would blow up.
George nodded. "He said that he'd met the perfect woman that he'd been searching his whole life for."
It had all been very romantic. A low, warm voice whispering in his ear. The two of them getting away from the ball to walk outside in the warm air. Brown eyes looking into his, drinking him in.
Nobody had ever looked at him like that before.
"And that was Georgina."
Neumann's voice brought him back to the present. At something of a loss, George nodded again.
"And you accepted," Neumann continued in that same flat voice.
"He's a *general*," George replied as patiently as he could, but it was getting rather difficult with the shell-shocked look on the chap's face. "I didn't feel I could really refuse."
Neumann sat quietly before clearing his throat. "I... see." He stood. "I shall have to speak with meine commanding officers about this."
"B-- What? I'm cooperating with you!" George objected.
Neumann nodded. "Ja, fully. Aber..." He stopped himself and tried again. "But we did not know this. We have to think of how to... fix this." He nodded again, standing up. "The... nurse will be here soon."
George narrowed his eyes at him. "How do I know you won't hurt my friends?"
Neumann looked at him. "You have my word."
Brown eyes looked at him earnestly, and for the first time since he found himself out of the prison cell, he felt... well, he wasn't bally well sure *what* he felt, but he could feel it in his bones. This chap wasn't going to lie to him, or break any promises. He couldn't explain it well at all, but he just *knew*.
George let himself relax a little. "All right."
Neumann nodded and turned away, heading for the door. "Sleep well, Lieutenant."
"Thank you." George looked at the hat still clumsily in his hands. Setting it on the bedside table, he looked back at the bedsheet, flecks of dirt still lightly on top. He shifted around a little, his fingers and arm protesting a little, but not much.
As he lay on his back, he frowned up at the ceiling and wondering why exactly it was that the color brown affected him so.
END
Fandom: Blackadder
Characters: George Colthurst St. Barleigh, Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, Heinrich Neumann (OMC)
Prompt: #017. Brown
Word Count: 1,737
Rating: PG for implied violence?
Summary: After awakening in the hospital, a new visitor gives George an offer he can't refuse.
Author's Notes: Written on a Wednesday between classes. Happens a while later after A Different Sort of White. Much thanks to
rainyd and edna_blackadder for the read-through. :D***
The next time George opened his eyes, he noticed the color brown.
It was another ordinary color -- he'd seen more than his share of it in the trenches, especially after a hard rain, but this sort of brown wasn't the kind that you could slip in and muddy your uniform with.
However, instead of mud, it was the color of the young man's eyes.
The chap couldn't've been more than his mid-twenties. He wore a rather smart uniform, pressed rather neatly, medals and such all very straight, even if it was a bit drab. His hair was cut short, and the lad was sitting in an uncomfortable-looking wooden chair next to George's bed, his hat in his lap. Clean-shaven, so that probably meant he wasn't a higher ranking officer, but this was also a jerry, so George wasn't really sure about that.
"Guten Morgen," the officer... Neumann? Was that some sort of rank? ...replied.
He had no earthly idea what that could possibly mean, but since the jerry wasn't actively trying to kill him or break any more of his appendages, George hazarded a guess that it meant something polite. Much like something you would say when you weren't sure what you *could* say because a chap was in bed.
George sat up a little straighter in his bed. Wouldn't do any good at all to give a bad impression -- model prisoner and all that.
"Ah, hullo," George replied back tentatively. Just in case that hadn't been meant to be polite.
"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" The young officer tilted his head a little, the thick brown eyebrows lowering, but his expression polite.
"Beg pardon?" George asked, his face screwing up into a puzzled look.
"Ich schätze nicht." The young man sighed. "I am Heinrich Neumann."
George blinked. "Oh! Was that what you were trying to say?" He offered his right hand immediately. "Lieutenant the Honorable George Colhurst St. Barleigh. Pleasure to meet you."
Neumann blinked, as if he were surprised. "A pleasure," he said slowly, reaching out his own hand and shaking George's hand tentatively.
George beamed at him before affecting his politely curious expression. "Not to sound rude or anything, but where *am* I? Last I knew, I was in a prison cell having my fingers broken."
Neumann stared at him for a moment, as if he were expecting more, and then nodded. "Well, we..." He paused. "How you say... We have released you, but mit condition."
"Mit condition?" George blinked.
Neumann frowned and then rolled his eyes. "*With* conditions. Das tut mir Leid." he appended quickly.
"Conditions?" George frowned. "What conditions?"
"You are to..." Heinrich paused again, looking annoyed. "Ausspionieren..."
"God bless you," George replied smartly.
Neumann blinked, and then shook his head. "Ausspio... spi-- spy! Ja, spy. You are to *spy* for us."
George blinked. "Spy on the British? For Harry Hun?"
Neumann nodded. "Ja--" He paused and cleared enunciated, "Yes."
George tried his best scowl and folded his arms as best he could, looking more like a petulant child instead of a British officer. It was especially difficult with the cast on his left arm. "Absolutely not."
Neumann nodded again, and looked as though he were expecting this. That wasn't good.
"Very well, Lieutenant." He was confusing his Vs and Ws again. What was it about Germans and confusing their consonants? "I have orders that if you do not..." He frowned. "Cooperate." He paused and then nodded. "A Captain Blackadder and a Private..." He pulled out a small slip of paper and squinted at it. "Baldrick." He looked back up at George. "They will be shot."
George's father once told him that a good British soldier doesn't reveal his weakness to the enemy, but this... The thought of Balders and the Cap, shot... "Y-You wouldn't bally well *dare*! A-a-and if you shoot them, I'll come back here and I'll... I'll jolly well take every one of you on to a man!"
One of Neumann's thick eyebrows rose, and brown eyes looked at him steadily. "Lieutenant."
It was like looking into another pair of brown eyes, that same firm but gentle tone. Forcing him to see the reality of the situation, even if he wanted to go in, guns blazing, boo sucks to Harry Hun...
George glared at him as best he could, trying to spit in this jerry's face like he had wanted to in the General's. "I'll jolly well do it."
"I'm sure you will," Neumann told him seriously. "But then your Captain and the private will have died, and you as well. All for nothing."
George gritted his teeth. "I joined up to fight for God and country. I'm not going to become a spy."
Neumann sighed. "Do you really want your Captain's family to have his body delivered to them, Lieutenant? Do you want Private Baldrick tossed into some shallow grave somewhere?"
"You haven't given me proof that you have them," George snarled.
Neumann calmly reached into the front of his jacket and removed a very beaten, hole-ridden hat that had seen *much* better days. From where he was laying on the bed, George was sure it even *smelled* like Baldrick.
Neuman looked at the hat, and then tossed it on the bed. It landed on George's legs, shaking loose some dirt onto the nice, clean sheets. "If you want more proof, I'm sure we can bring back a finger."
George stared at the hat for a long moment before he reached for the hat, picking it up and trying futilely to wipe more dirt off the top. Flecks of brown drifted down, dark against the white sheets.
Neumann looked at him steadily before standing. "Ich habe meine Antwort." He turned and took a step.
George looked up, and abruptly grabbed for the end of Neumann's jacket. "Wait!"
Neumann stopped, turning to look at George. "Have you... changed your mind?"
George gritted his teeth, feeling himself shake a little. "...yes."
Neumann nodded, and sat back down on the chair. "Good."
George took a slow breath before sagging back onto the bed. "What do you want me to do?" he asked in a hollow voice.
"As I said, you will spy for us," Neumann replied.
"But how? They already know who I am and all that. They might even shoot me if they thought I deserted." George pointed out.
Brown eyes looked at him, not entirely unsympathetic. "We have a plan for that."
"Well?" George frowned at him. "What is it?"
"We want information on troop movements," Neumann replied. "But since you will be arrested if you return to duty, you will go undercover."
"Oh?" George's frown turned curious, despite himself. He'd always rather fancied the idea of being someone else, even if it was just for a little while. Of course, he'd jolly well never anticipated this. "Do tell."
"Some months ago," Neumann said, reaching for George's bedside table, and for the first time, not only did George notice he *had* a bedside table, but there was a folder there that Neumann picked up and opened. "You were in eine... 'music hall' production."
George nodded. "The traditional soldier's drag act." He smiled. "It was jolly good fun."
Neumann nodded distractedly. "We received reports that Das Schöne Georgina was... taken?" Neumann frowned. "To a ball?"
"I think you want 'escorted'," George replied helpfully.
Neumann nodded. "Ah, ja. Escorted. Das Schöne Georgina was escorted to the regimental ball by General Melchett."
George nodded again. "That was rather lovely. But why are you bringing that up now?"
Neumann raised a thick brown eyebrow at him. "Das Schöne Georgina will make a... how you say... triumphant return."
George blinked. "What?"
"You heard me, ja?" Neumann frowned.
"But... I couldn't possibly..." George shook his head.
"Warum nicht?"
George blinked. "Beg pardon?"
Neumann opened his mouth and then looked annoyed. "Why not?"
"Well, it's not that I wouldn't *mind*, necessarily. It's just that I can't."
"We will have dresses made..."
"It's not that. It's just that the Cap told General Melchett that Georgina trod on a cluster of mines," George explained. "Georgina can't bally well come back from the *dead*."
Neumann's frown this time was more puzzled than annoyed. "Why?"
"Why what?" George blinked.
"Why did your Captain say that?"
"Oh, well, the General proposed to me, and I ended up saying yes. It was an absolute mess, really."
Neumann stared at him.
George blinked again. He was doing that rather a lot during this conversation. It was almost worse than that time Mum had him peeling onions as punishment for tracking mud in the house again. "What?"
"The General proposed to you? A... marriage proposal?" Neumann asked slowly, as if he were approaching a mine that he was worried would blow up.
George nodded. "He said that he'd met the perfect woman that he'd been searching his whole life for."
It had all been very romantic. A low, warm voice whispering in his ear. The two of them getting away from the ball to walk outside in the warm air. Brown eyes looking into his, drinking him in.
Nobody had ever looked at him like that before.
"And that was Georgina."
Neumann's voice brought him back to the present. At something of a loss, George nodded again.
"And you accepted," Neumann continued in that same flat voice.
"He's a *general*," George replied as patiently as he could, but it was getting rather difficult with the shell-shocked look on the chap's face. "I didn't feel I could really refuse."
Neumann sat quietly before clearing his throat. "I... see." He stood. "I shall have to speak with meine commanding officers about this."
"B-- What? I'm cooperating with you!" George objected.
Neumann nodded. "Ja, fully. Aber..." He stopped himself and tried again. "But we did not know this. We have to think of how to... fix this." He nodded again, standing up. "The... nurse will be here soon."
George narrowed his eyes at him. "How do I know you won't hurt my friends?"
Neumann looked at him. "You have my word."
Brown eyes looked at him earnestly, and for the first time since he found himself out of the prison cell, he felt... well, he wasn't bally well sure *what* he felt, but he could feel it in his bones. This chap wasn't going to lie to him, or break any promises. He couldn't explain it well at all, but he just *knew*.
George let himself relax a little. "All right."
Neumann nodded and turned away, heading for the door. "Sleep well, Lieutenant."
"Thank you." George looked at the hat still clumsily in his hands. Setting it on the bedside table, he looked back at the bedsheet, flecks of dirt still lightly on top. He shifted around a little, his fingers and arm protesting a little, but not much.
As he lay on his back, he frowned up at the ceiling and wondering why exactly it was that the color brown affected him so.
END
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 07:59 pm (UTC)Another satisfied customer! Squee!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 03:32 am (UTC)*blink*
*blush*
Aww, thanks. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-29 09:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-20 01:17 am (UTC)You're not really going to make George spy on King and country, are you?
no subject
Date: 2008-03-22 12:20 am (UTC)I loved this line here:
"He's a *general*," George replied as patiently as he could, but it was getting rather difficult with the shell-shocked look on the chap's face. "I didn't feel I could really refuse."
OH man. Just. This wins, hardcore.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-27 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-20 09:56 pm (UTC)